While I agree in many ways it is, certainly the survivability is better, but even with the Might Aura, Last Wish’s damage doesn’t reach Grief’s damage. That doesn’t even get into the area of talking about cost for value. Obviously Grief wins huge in that category and it isn’t even close, especially in D2R, where there aren’t bots diluting the economy with Jahs and other HRs. All in all, if any rune word needs a buff to damage to be on par with Grief, it’s Last Wish, to justify it’s cost of 3 Jahs, a Sur, and a Ber.
2 Likes
They aren’t nerfing Grief. They stated in the Dev Deep Dive, they’re only buffing lagging skills and creating new runewords. They aren’t going to nerf anything.
Yeah, this is painfully true. Last Wish should be an absolute monster for its cost. It honestly isn’t even worth building.
1 Like
karma will get you for all those “nerf blizzard” posts - would be hilarious lol
Yeah, an easy solution would be to change the +330%-375% Enhanced Damage to Grief’s Damage +340-400. That would at least bring it to on on par, but people I think would still choose Grief over LW because of the attack speed, so really the best easy change to make it worth the cost of the 5 HRs would be to include the +30-40% Increased Attack Speed as well.
Yeah, it needs Grief’s +dmg and ias to be worth building. Even then, everyone would just build Grief because it’s cheap.
The thing with last wish is it frees up a couple things.
It frees up a glove slot so you don’t need to run dracs which can then be used to offset the attack speed
Don’t need a might merc which allows holy freeze
It ignores defense so it doesn’t miss much same as grief
When used on a zealot it is better the 5 hits of last wish will kill quicker then grief (at least through my testing)
Last wish was never intended for pvp use. The benefits you get from it are pretty damn good imo. Fade and life tap from the same source frees up other gear slots and ensures survivability for any character weilding the weapon, might aura is a nice damage bonus for mercs and melee chars, mf is decently high, and the 60-70% crushing blow makes high hp bosses melt faster. It was likely created with ubers in mind, and not so much as a viable pvp weapon.
You could get a last wish and go holy freeze merc, or you could go might merc and give him a Doom for much less cost.
As a frenzy barb i use grief - but i hate that i use it. I happen to use mine with lawbringer, which would interfere with Last Wish anyway.
Perhaps Grief shouldnt be nerfed, but the Lo rune should be. Make Lo rarer than Zod and 2x Zod = Lo. Problem solved. Otherwise nerf it hard and nerf it fast.
Item progression at the moment is non existant. You start and use whatever you pickup from monsters which is good, then you get a Mal and make an Oath, then you get a Lo and make a Grief… End of weapon journey.
eBOTD needs to make a comeback - its utterly cool and deserves some air time. Whilst Grief exists in its current form noone will use it. Nor will they use any of the plethora of weapon runewords.
If a build is damaged by not having Grief, change the build. If balance is the issue, then balance in different ways such as anew synergies (which have been confirmed to be coming).
PS: Please make scourges available with 6 sockets.
Grief is considered overpowered because the flat +400 damage modifier makes it the highest raw damage option when your budget is one Lo rune. Someone could explain why that is bad but not me.
It’s obvious that last wish is the superior weapon for killing ubers, and that ebotdz or edeathz is superior for farming chaos when you have the rest of the items needed to take advantage of +30 all stats and leech or the deadly strike on death. When you are already one shotting everything, grief is not BiS.
PvP builds that nerfing grief would kill or seriously neuter:
Tele smiter
V/T
Liberator (Hammer / Smite)
BvC
There is an even more powerful version of grief in d2LOD. In fact there are a few of them. I suggest they change grief by allowing the grief of doom and grief of destruction hybrid runewords in d2r. That would help bring grief up to the level of some of the better options in PvM while bringing those characters listed above more in line with their original power level in PvP.
No it won’t, lol. Not even close.
Sure, but you don’t need it for ubers, ubers aren’t lucrative to farm, and it’s so obscenely expensive, it just isn’t worth it.
I honestly think it’s the worst item in the entire game in terms of cost to benefit. I can just prebuff with Treachery, wear drac’s and grief, and I’m dealing more damage, leeching more life, and those items are like 1/50th the cost altogether.
LW is absolute garbage. It was obviously created far too hastily (like many items and mechanics) after the original team left. Another post 1.09 mistake by a group of individuals who had no emotional attachment to the game, and just did what they were told.
Why wouldn’t they just create new runewords instead of allowing mass duped/hacked items?
I never said anything about PVP, I was simply comparing the damage of the 2 weapons and the cost in HRs of the 2 weapons.
The vv dev’s mentioned that they liked the idea of hybrid runewords from D2LOD and were experimenting with ways that they could add them to the game. Why create new runewords when they have a decade of data showing the hybrid runewords were a smash hit? Spirit of phoenix anyone??? Enigma of duress??? yes please!
Yes yes it will it melts bosses and is ideal for Baal runs as grief doesn’t have the deadly strike that’s what makes last wish better and faster it’s the better weapon grief is a budget burner that’s it
Or you can just wear a last wish, free up valuable stash space and save time by not storing/using a bunch of prebuff gear, and farm torches faster. Torches can be very lucrative if you’re efficient with farming/trading them. I got rich doing that every ladder season in OG D2. Last wish is expensive and agree it’s not a necessity but it makes everything a LOT easier.
You’re comparing apples to oranges. The benefits of last wish are more than just the damage output. You’re getting life tap and fade, two of the most OP things in the game for melee characters, plus a huge amount of crushing blow.
No, we have over a decade of data on the two. Grief + CB from other sources is faster than LW by far. The comparisons have been made multiple times. It’s settled science at this point. Well, it was settled a long time ago.
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=32741366
^ All of the previous world records for ubers used Grief, and the latest one didn’t use any RW at all in the weapon slot, but a 6s PB with Shael and Bers so they could use Atma’s on the ammy and focus on dmg instead of safety.
You literally don’t need any lifetap at all to do ubers, and you end up doing it far faster that way.
1 Like
But you don’t need that item for either of those. And you don’t even need lifetap to complete ubers if you kill them fast enough. Further, if you want lifetap to be safe, you can just buy a random wand and swap to your secondary.
1 Like
One armor slot isn’t hurting anything, lol, and you still have to prebuff with LW. Simply walking into ubers and hoping it procs before you die is a horrible idea. Also, the fastest runs in the world are not using LW.
The most valuable torches in the game aren’t even trading for a HR right now. Early on, you’ll get maybe 2 hr’s for them, but they fall off fast when people start farming their own torches. It’s far more lucrative to do trav runs and just get bers and los. I’m not saying it’s impossible to make hr’s from torches early on, but it’s super inefficient compared to other forms of farming, and it’s terrible after the first month of the ladder.